In lieu of making yet another LeBron/Jay-Z analogy, let’s put it this way: The Cavs are treating the Wizards like LL Cool J did Canibus. They’ll take some time out to address the beef, but always with a swagger that says “Who is this little pest?” It’s even trickled down to the announcers. When Washington came out blasting last night (”Second Round Knockout”) and put the Cavs down by as much as 18 in the first half, Austin Carr admitted the game didn’t mean as much to LeBron and Co. as it did to Gilbert Arenas‘ squad. Read More »

The worst part about preseason polls is that voters adopt a loyalty to those pre-determined spots even after the season shows us some of those picks were just wrong. College football gets it the worst, but the same often applies for the NBA; the only saving grace is that, at the end of the day, voter opinion doesn’t matter because the NBA has a playoff.

That said, we ignored making a preseason NBA Hit List power ranking, so as not to influence this first week’s edition. Counting down from worst to first… Read More »

Inevitably, the beginning of the NBA season this week means my ability to watch football drops significantly. In the time that I was able to watch a lot of NFL, though, I saw the still-winless Tennessee Titans headed for an epic collapse.

This year’s Titans are like last year’s Detroit Pistons: Seemingly on the brink of a championship the previous season, they started off slow, kept losing, and eventually the “They’ll get it together” vibe noticeably shifted to “They just stink.” Read More »

Right after “Take advantage of any opportunity for free food,” one of the golden rules of this whole journalism thing is that you have to let both sides tell their story.

Over the last year, a lot of people have been telling Rip Hamilton’s story for him. Read More »

One sequence defined last night’s Lakers/Nuggets national TV preseason game: In the second half, after Kobe Bryant had already come out of the locker room with That Look in his eye, he pulled off his new favorite move on Kenyon Martin; getting him in the air with a pump fake and spinning a quick 360 to his left, dropping a jumper as K-Mart harmlessly floated back to Earth. Then on the Nuggets’ ensuing possession, Kobe jumped a passing lane and finished with a breakway one-hander, slapping on the bottom-teeth snarl as an exclamation point … Read More »

Whether you’re spending your valuable TV time or your valuable ticket money, when you settle in to watch an NBA preseason game, you hope everybody — or at least somebody — on the court treats it like Jason Terry did last night. In the Mavs/Pistons game that aired on NBA TV, Terry almost had you thinking something important was at stake. It seemed at every dead ball he was trying to hype up the Dallas crowd, raising his arms and screaming or doing his little “Jet” dance, and then between the lines he was locked in like it was a playoff game. Read More »

Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — previewing the NBA season by predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team. Same theme, different season…

Added: Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, Austin Daye, Chris Wilcox, Ben Wallace, DaJuan Summers, Jonas Jerebko Read More »

If this is the beginning of a trend, we’ll have to adjust that projected number of wins we had for the Memphis Grizzlies ceiling this year. When Allen Iverson sat out the first preseason game with a “sore hamstring,” we figured that was just NBA code for “I’m a 14-year vet, f*** a preseason.” As it turns out, A.I. really is banged up and will be sidelined for three weeks with a partially torn hammy. There’s a slight chance he could be back by the real opener, when the Grizzlies host the Pistons in what was going to be their biggest regular season game in maybe ever … Memphis beat the Thunder in last night’s exhibition, getting 22 points (13-16 FT) from rookie Sam Young and 18 points from Rudy Gay. Read More »

Of the four teams that played in last night’s NBA preseason games, three were of the “new-look” variety: Orlando, Dallas and Detroit. Most relevant to the 2010 championship race, the Magic debuted Vince Carter in their win over the Mavs. Starting at two-guard next to Mickael Pietrus at the three and Rashard Lewis at the four, Vince scored 21 points on 7-of-18 shooting, 3-of-12 beyond the arc. Dwight Howard had 17 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks, and Rashard scored 18 with four threes … Dirk Nowitzki — looking like an awkward Thor with the long-hair/headband combo — scored 23 points (17-19 FT) for the Mavs, who were without Shawn Marion (rest) and Josh Howard (ankle) … Read More »

Every NBA team has a go-to guy, and there’s really only room for one. And it’s not strictly who takes the last-second shot. It’s the guy who regularly gets the ball when things are getting tense in the fourth; the guy expected to calm things down when teammates are getting sloppy; the guy called upon to snuff out an opponent’s rally, or spark a rally of his own; the guy who’s not just supposed to make shots, but make the right decisions.

Bottom line: Who do you want the offense to run through when everything is on the line? From #30 to #1, these are the League’s best go-to guys… Read More »